Holoscreen Turns Any Phone Into 3D Display

In a corner conference room, Han Jin, the CEO of Lucid, places an old iPhone 7 Plus on the table. He swipes through pages of apps, showing me what looks on all counts to be a normal iPhone with a screen protector on it. Then, he opens the Lucid app and plays a clip from Avatar in 3D. I look at him astonished, realizing he just made the iPhone 3D.

This isn't some magic trick, but rather a screen protector that can make the iPhone's display, or pretty much any phone, for that matter, show 3D. It works by using a special lenticular screen protector called Holoscreen along with Lucid's app.

The screen looks normal when not using Lucid's app. Email and texts are sharp and crisp. But with the app, I can view photos and videos in 3D, and the effect looks very smooth. I didn't see the banding or ghosting that you see from some 3D screens such as those on the Nintendo 3DS.

I can even take my own 3D photos and videos and share them using the app, too. The one caveat here is you need a phone with two rear cameras like the iPhone 7 Plus to so.

The Holoscreen's price is much less and will be around $30-$40 -- not much more than a normal screen protector. This affordable price should allow many people to try 3D out on a phone for the first time. Holoscreen aims to be to 3D content what Google Cardboard is to VR.

I don't think Holoscreen will transform anyone's deep-seated beliefs or hatred for 3D. But for many people who are curious about 3D, this seems to be an affordable way to test the waters. And if you don't like the 3D effect or stop watching content over time, the Holoscreen still works as a screen protector.